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Mayibuye study series No. 1: The South African Transition - in a World Context

Mayibuye, Vol. 6, no. 3, July 1995

The transition that has been happening in SA has been confusing for many of
us. We can all see that there has been some progress. But do our old
concepts and approaches still apply?

How do we locate what has been happening in SA these last four years? Has
the transition in SA been part of a wider world process? If so what kind of
process does it fit?

Are we involved in a national liberation process of decolonisation? Or is
it more a negotiated transition to democracy?

In this series we will go in depth into many of these questions.

Early years

The ANC has always located the South African struggle in the broader
context of world developments. This has been a key strength of our
movement.

In 1906 Pixley ka Isaka Seme wrote "The Regeneration of Africa". This was
to be an important inspiration for the formation of the ANC six years
later. The Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the century had produced the first
negotiated, power-sharing arrangement in our country. But it was a deal
between the British Colonial Office and local white settlers. The majority
of South Africa's people, like those of the continent at large, remained
colonised.

Right from the start, the ANC located itself in a broader African
anti-colonial struggle.

After the Second World War

In December 1943, as the end of the Second World War was in sight, the ANC
national conference endorsed a key document, "Africans' Claims in South
Africa". A broad alliance of international forces was on the brink of
defeating fascism and nazism. But how different was fascism from the racial
oppression of colonised peoples? Countries in Europe that had suffered
military occupation by fascist forces had every right to fight national
liberation struggles, and to receive international support.

But what of the people of Asia and Africa? Would the period after the
Second World War simply return them to colonialism? Was democracy just for
Europeans and North Americans? Sensing that world politics was about to be
restructured, the ANC made its own progressive interventions into these
debates.

Decolonisation

In the 1950s and early 1960s dozens of African and Asian national
liberation movements were indeed to lead their people to independence. This
was one of the positive fruits of the post-Second World War victory. But
decolonisation also had other, less positive, reasons.

The old colonial powers - like Britain and France - had lost ground to the
United States. The US saw in decolonisation an opportunity to open up new
markets for its own companies. Formal decolonisation, US imperialist
circles realised, need not block imperial control. Instead of installing
American colonial administrations to replace British and French colonisers,
dollar power and local neo-colonial collaborators could do a better job.

Neo-colonialism or NDR?

This was the world context in which the Congress of the People convened at
Kliptown in June 1955. Formal decolonisation, a new flag and anthem, were
not all that were at stake in South Africa. Everyone had the right to
citizenship, yes. But there were two different paths to decolonisation:

a neo-colonial path that bestowed formal rights, but left the majority
of people still living in poverty; or

a more far-reaching national democratic revolution.

The social and economic content of decolonisation was critical. This is
what the Congress movement began to discuss for the first time in some
substance in 1955. And this is the true meaning of the Freedom Charter.
Once more, the ANC was connecting our own struggle to developments in the
world.

The progressive path?

But how were national liberation movements to embark on a progressive
national democratic path in a world dominated by imperialism?

This was the question that the ANC increasingly asked itself in the 1950s
and 60s. The most outstanding document to emerge from this process was the
"Strategy and Tactics" document of the ANC's 1969 Morogoro Conference.

A second major power, the Soviet Union, had emerged from the ashes of the
Second World War. The existence of a second, Soviet-dominated power bloc,
provided at best support and at the very least, some room for manoeuvre for
progressive Third World liberation movements. By aligning themselves with
the Soviet bloc, or by at least practising non-alignment, progressive
liberation forces could hope to win some breathing space for themselves.

This was the strategic orientation of the ANC at this time.

How relevant now?

However, the world has changed dramatically in the last few years. So how
valid are our historic strategic perspectives now? This is the key question
to which we shall return in future instalments of this series.

The Mayibuye Study Series will appear monthly to prompt discussion and
debate about politics and theory. The next few issues will focus on the
South African transition in a global context.